An investigation into syntactic and semantic features of english go idioms in conection with the vietnamese equivalents (nghiên cứu các đặc trưng cú pháp và ngữ nghĩa của các thành ngữ tiếng anh có động từ go tro

Vol. 7 No. 1, 2020
ISSN 2059-2027

European Journal of English Language, Linguistics and Literature

AN INVESTIGATION INTO SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF ENGLISH “GO” IDIOMS WITH REFERENCE TO THE
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, MA.
Phenikaa University
VIETNAM


Phan Minh Huyen, MA.
University of Economics and Business Administration
VIETNAM


ABSTRACT
Among the most popular English words being used currently worldwide, the verb “GO” has
been, without a doubt, of great concern by linguists so far. Therefore, an initial investigation
into syntactic and semantic features of “GO” idioms with reference to the Vietnamese
equivalents would provide valuable experience to further studies of linguistics in general and
help Vietnamese students as learners of foreign language in translation. Numerous examples
have been analyzed cautiously by applying qualitative approach and some other ones so as to
achieve the objectives of the research.
Keywords: Idioms with ‘go’, syntax, semantics, Vietnamese equivalents.
INTRODUCTION
It is undeniable that language is an indispensable part in the life of humanity. Language is an
effective and irreplaceable tool of expressing mind, thought, saying, etc. English is a very rich
language and when people want to be proficient in English, all the linguistic phenomena have

to be covered.
In fact, we are daily dealing with different kinds of figurative language, like idiomatic
expressions, metonymies and metaphors. Some of them are conventional while some of them
may be created as we speak (Caillies & Declercq, 2011:207). Accordingly, the
comprehension of the former, usually idiomatic expressions, depends on retrieval of a
figurative meaning stored in memory, whereas the comprehension of the latter, usually
metaphors, depends on an online sense creation process (Caillies & Declercq, 2011: 219).
Those who learn English desires to master English as the native speakers. However, we
usually face the difficulties that prevent us from gaining natural conversations. One of the
reasons for these problems lies in the way we perceive and use idioms. The structural and
semantic problems posed by idioms puzzle us because most idioms do not mean what they
appear to mean.
It can be said that studying idioms is not new, but it has never been old. Through the history
of the development of English there has been a list of around 1,000 most commonly used
words of all parts of speech (that can be used on a daily basis for learners of English to
comprehend. And GO is one of the most common verbs in English, which is able to capture
special attention of all-time linguists.
This research is conducted to achieve the targets of finding out syntactic and semantic
features of “GO” idioms with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents as well as suggesting
some possible implications for Vietnamese students who study English as a foreign language.
To achieve the above-mentioned aims, the following objectives can be put forwards:
Progressive Academic Publishing, UK

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(1). Pointing out syntactic features of “GO” idioms with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents.
(2). Figuring out semantic features of “GO “idioms with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents.

(3). Suggesting possible implications for Vietnamese students in learning, teaching and translating
“GO” idioms.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Regarding idioms, Seidl and McMordie (1978) are the linguists chosen to shed the light of the
theory during the analysis of the theme. On the other words, the syntactic and semantic
features of “GO” idioms are going investigated and discussed based on the Seidl and
McMordie’s theory.
Seidl and McMordie (1978) claim that native speakers use idioms in daily speeches and they
do not realize that these idioms are grammatically incorrect. There is a difference among the
perception of idioms by native speakers and second language learners. Second language
learners realize that idioms are grammatically incorrect and that is why it is quite difficult for
them to learn them but the hard study of them can help very much. Seidl and McMordie
(1978) also add that application of idioms can sometimes cause a big problem for the users.
The English learners usually do not know in which situation they should use idioms because
idioms can be used both in formal and informal situations. The words ought to be chosen
according to the situation in which a certain person is. When speaking to a friend, it is
preferred to use informal or slang expressions. In a formal situation, words must be chosen
much more carefully. Formal expressions can be found in the written form of language rather
than in the spoken one. Informal expressions are thus used in day-to-day speeches, e.g.
among friends.
The connection between the origin and the current use can be another problem while using
idioms. "It has often been necessary, in dealing with an idiom of which the current meaning is
clear and that is generally used correctly, to state that the connection between the origin and
the meaning in unknown." (Collins, 1958).
“GO” is a lexical (or main) verb. It can be viewed as a dynamic and an intransitive verb
sharing the typical syntactic functions of a verb.
Table 1: Syntactic structures of “GO” combinations
Structures
Examples
(1) V (Go) + adverb

Go right/ go wrong
(2) V (Go) + PP
Go out
(3) Go + infinitive / gerund
Go shopping
(4) Go + preposition
Go in there
(5) Go + adjective
Go fast/ Go home
Table 2: The semantic senses encoded by the verb “GO”
Meanings
Examples
(1) Movement (move / travel from one location to
He’s gone to school; I’m going in the car
another)
(2) Belong / fit (person or entity belongs in a specific Does that piece go there? The book goes on the
location, fits in a specific location)
shelf.
(3) Disappearance (person or entity is no longer
Where’s that book gone? (when looking for it)
present/ missing without implication of prior
movement)
(4) Future intent (infinitival)
I’m going to dance; She goes to get him from school.
(5) Encourage
Go on, you can do it.
(6) Sound (sound, noise or speech)
It went bang; Dogs go woof.
(7) Happening
What’s going on? What went on here?

(8) Give up possession
Let go.


(9) Specified motion (at specific location)
(10) State / outcome
(11) Order of occurrence
(12) Aim for
(13) Searching / reading etc.
(14) Increase/ decrease (size, value)
(15) Resume
(16) Catch illness
(17) Dislike
(18) Prepare

Go like this with your foot; The tape’s going round
and round.
It’s gone wrong; It’s going cold.
You go first.
He’s going for the red one; I went for the black.
Let’s go through this book; I went through that pile.
The price went up; That balloon’s going down
Go back to the jigsaw; You’re going back to the
toys.
You’ll go down with a cold; He went down with flu.
Have you gone off chips?
I went off jigsaws
Get the dinner going.

There have been a number of writers making investigations into idioms with different points

of view and objectives. In English, some famous ones were collected and written by
researchers such as “The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms” by Ammer, C. In “NTC’s
American Idioms Dictionary”, Spears, R. and Kirkpatrick, B. focus on the meaning, usage
and appropriate contexts for each idiomatic phrase. Nguyễn Lực, Lương Văn Đang are two
authors who made a significant contribution in the field of Vietnamese idioms. They wrote
“Thành ngữ Tiếng Việt” which is a collection of Vietnamese idioms arranged in alphabetical
order with clear explanations and examples extracted from Vietnamese novels, newspapers
and magazines. Moreover, Nguyễn Trần Trụ who wrote “Thành ngữ tục ngữ lược giải”
explains meanings of the most common idioms and proverbs in such simple, clear ways that
learners can use this book for consulting and reference purposes.
In addition, “Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt Nam” by Đặng Hồng Chương, “1575 Thành ngữ
- Tục ngữ cần bàn thêm” by Lê Gia and a number of contrastive studies on the various
aspects of idioms have been carried out in Danang University by Vietnamese researchers.
Some studies of Vietnamese researchers that the author has found so far tend to make
comparisons between ways of using some popular structures with the verbs they chose. They
also listed grammatical structures and provided a wide range of examples and Vietnamese
translated versions in order to help other linguists to obtain the examples’ meanings more
broadly. Thanks to this, when these authors presented their conclusions, their findings can be
viewed on a more comprehensive scale.
Relating to the verb “GO”, Hà Thị Hồng (2010) conducted “A Contrastive Sudy of the verb
Go in English and Đi in Vietnamese: A Perspective of Embodiment in Cognitive Linguistics.”
The study provided a critical analysis of theoretical approaches of cognition of explaining
language phenomena. Through the analysis of the verb “GO” in English and the verb ĐI in
Vietnamese, the researcher attempted to present another viewpoint of linguistic exploration,
i.e. to interpret the use of language from the understanding of our cognition.
METHODOLOGY
This study was conducted by combining the two research approaches of both quantitative and
qualitative. In the first place, data was collected from a wide range of sources from printed
publications and e-books on the Internet (certified by Google Books). After the collecting
stage was finished, examples then were qualitatively described, analyzed and illustrated in

terms of syntactic and semantic features. At the same time, they were also compared with
their Vietnamese equivalents under a process of statistical analysis to fully answer to the two
first research question individually. For the third question, pedagogical implications were


withdrawn after the two questions about syntactic and semantic features were brought out
entirely.
This study is intended to investigate English “GO” idioms with reference to the Vietnamese
equivalents, therefore, the descriptive and comparative methods have been chosen. First of
all, the descriptive method is used in order to give complete and evident descriptions of both
syntactic and semantic features of English idioms of the verb “GO”. Secondly, the
comparative method is applied to identify similarities and differences with the Vietnamese
equivalents. Some other methods such as analytical and synthetic methods have also been
used as supporting methods. While analyses are vital to analyzing collected data, grouping
results into divisions is crucial to give a comprehensive view of what has been concluded.
Last but not least, devoted commentaries and guidance from the author’s supervisor are very
useful to the author. Without these valuable and major contributions, the author could not
have done this research successfully and effectively.
To collect data for the research, Google search engine has been placed in use and it has been
the most popular and effective tool so far to discover reliable and diverse sources of
materials. The vital tip the author used here is putting some key words between two quotation
marks and, consequently, examples gathered so far have been the most precise ones from
printed books that are also typed by Google Books’ hard-working employees to make Internet
versions. Therefore, essential information about authors, years of publication and names of
publishers are always presented clearly. At the same time, some dictionaries have been
searched to find structures and idioms related to the verb “GO” as well as their Vietnamese
equivalents. After that, the collected data will be classified thanks to the clustering and
classification techniques, which helps greatly in defining and figuring out various syntactic
and semantic features in meaning categories or structures and idioms later. Other techniques
are also employed such as reading comprehension, note-taking or meaning analyzing to select

precisely materials related to English idioms with the verb “GO”. In sum, because of these
data collection techniques, English idioms with the verb “GO” have been collected
successfully up to now together with an array of authentic examples from reliable sources.
The stage of analyzing data is to qualitatively and quantitatively describe syntactic and
semantic features of English idioms with the verb “GO” to provide a larger view of English
idioms in general as well as English idioms with the verb “GO” in particular. For such reason,
the data profiling technique is used in this step to track the frequency, distribution and
characteristics of the data collected. Finally, illustrated examples of the above-mentioned
features are cited to present the features effectively.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Syntactic features of “GO” idioms
From what have been collected and analyzed, the most typical and outstanding features of the
structure of “GO” idioms cane be synthesized in the table as follows.


Table 3. The structure of “GO” iidioms with GO as a single verb
Syntactic feature
Quantity
Rate %
(Go + components)
simple noun phrase (NP)
3
4.84
complex NP
6
9.68
preposition + simple NP
11
17.74
24

38.71
Single verb preposition + complex NP
adjective
9
14.52
Go
adverb
4
6.45
preposition
5
8.06
Total
62
100%

Chart 1: The second component of “GO” idioms with GO as a single verb
Simple noun phrase (NP) Complex NP

Preposition + simple NP Preposition + complex NP Adjective
17.74%
Adverb
Preposition

14.52%

38.71%

Table 4. The structure of GO idioms with GO as a phrasal verb
Syntactic feature

Phrasal verb GO + components
Total
Phrasal verb
Noun phrase
Preposition
Preposition +
(NP)
+ NP
pronoun
Go off
6
1
0
7
Go about
1
0
0
1
Go out
1
4
0
5
Go through
5
0
0
5
Go for

1
0
1
2

Rate %
33.33
4.76
23.81
23.81
9.52

Go down

0

2

0

2

9.52

Go up

0

1

0

1

4.76

Go along

0

1

0

1

4.76

Go on

0

0

1

1

4.76

Go against

1

0

0

1

4.76

Total

15

9

2

21

100


Chart 2: Phrasal verb "GO" + components

Go of

33.33%

9.52%
9.52%

23.81%

Go about Go out
Go through Go for
Go down Go up Go along Go on
Go against

23.81%

The data shows that the structures “go + preposition + NP” (38.71%) and “Go off + NP”, “Go
through + NP” are mostly used to form “GO” idioms. The rate of the two phrasal verbs
combining with NP is 73 %.
The structure “phrasal verb + NP” accounts for the highest rate 15/46 (32.61%). Overall sum
of both structures having single verb and phrasal verb with “GO” and idioms having “GO” as
a single verb make up the higher rate (75.61 %).
The idiomatic meaning and the equivalents in Vietnamese of the “GO” idioms are going to be
shown and discussed in the part 4.2 of this research.
Semantic features of “GO” idioms
As what can be seen, from the above presented list of the “GO” idioms, “GO” can combine
with a variety of words or phrases denoting different meanings. Although the verb “to go” is
defined as “to move or to travel from one place to another place” (Oxford Advance Learners’
Dictionary), its original meaning can be only kept as “movement” in some cases. In most of
the other cases, the meaning as “movement” can be changed completely new. The meaning of
“GO” idioms mainly depends on the second component of the combinations.
Among the number of 110 “GO” idioms collected, there are only eight idioms, accounting for
7.3%, in which the verb “GO” keeps the origin meaning as “movement”. They are going to

be presented in the following table.
Idioms
Go like the wind
Go hell for leather
Go on a journey
Go on business
Go for a spin
Go to bed with the chickens
Go with the flow
Go full bat

Table 5. Idioms with “GO” denoting “movement”
Meaning
Vietnamese equivalents
Go / Run quickly
Đi / chạy như ma đuổi
Go as fast as possible
Đi nhanh như bay
Trip, outing
Du ngoạn, chu du, đi đây đi đó
Go on a mission
Đi công tác
Take a drive, go for a ride in a car Đi ơ tơ, chạy xe một vịng
Go to bed at sundown -at the same Đi ngủ từ lúc gà lên chuồng
time chicken go to bed
Follow the general tendency and Đi theo số đông, chạy theo đa số
go along with whatever happens.
Go very quickly
Đi ba chân bốn cẳng

The rest number of “GO” idioms contains the verb “GO” not meaning “move to somewhere”
like “go to the supermarket”, “go to the park”, “go to the zoo”, etc. The different meanings of


the verb “GO” seem to depend on the hidden meaning of the second component in the
combination as an idiom. As mentioned in the previous chapters, idioms are normally fixed
expressions that they cannot be understood by separating each component, but as the whole.
In order to summarize some outstanding semantic features of the GO idioms which have been
categogized based on the function of indicating things of noun phrase, the author implement a
stastic as in the table 6.
Table 6. Common categories of noun phrases in GO idioms
Category
Fruit
Work of art
Weapon
Distance
Animals
Material

Objects

Parts
of house
Sport equipment
Body parts

Natural world

Total

Name
banana
nut
song
gun
mile
length
way
hog
dog
chicken
grain (of wood)
leather
kite
pot
handcart
handbasket
overdrive
patch
waste
wall
window
roof
bat
mat
head
ear
heart
wind
fire

water
air
rock
flame
smoke
limb (of tree)
seed (of tree)
flow (water)

Quantity
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Total

Rate %

2

5.41

1
1

2.70

2.70

3

8.11

3

8.11

2

5.41

7

18.92

3

8.11

2

5.41

3

8.11

10

27.03

37

100


Chart 3: Common categories of noun phrases in "GO" idioms
Fruit
5.41%

Work of art Weapon Distance Animals Material Objects
Parts of house
Sport
equipment Body parts
8.11%

8.11%

27.03%

5.41%

8.11%
5.41%

8.11%

19.92%

The data shows that the noun phrases indicating objects and natural world accounts for the
highest rate, 18.92% for objects and 27.03% for natural world. Parts of a house, parts of body
and animals have the same rate (8.11 %), ranked in the second higher position, according to
the above table.
Vietnamese idioms also contain the nouns belonging to such categories. For example, the
word “dog” (chó) appears in the idiom “fight like cats and dogs” (cãi nhau như chó với mèo).
“Window” (cửa sổ) also enters the idiom “ném tiền qua cửa sổ” to talk about wasting
something. In terms of the nouns indicating parts of body, Vietnamese idioms say “anh em
như thể tay chân” to talk about the close relationship between brothers and sisters (siblings)
or “tai to mặt lớn” to describe someone in high position of society. With regard to natural
world, Vietnamese have an idiom “gió (wind) thoảng mây (cloud) trơi” to refer something not
long- lasting. The image of “sky” and “land” appear in the idiom like “trời xui đất khiến” to
imply that something happens accidently or coincidently.
Language can reflect every aspect of life, including ways of living and thinking. Through
these “GO” idioms in the study, it can be seen that humans generally tend to take anything in
life from the world to imply what they mean. The richness of language is reflected clearly in
idioms. Through idioms, a national or cultural identity can be felt distinctly. It makes the
difference between two nations. For example, the idiom “go for a song” can not be “ rẻ như
bài hát”, but “rẻ như bèo”.
However, there are some similarities in the way of choosing the objects or phenomena to
make hidden comparison. This feature can be seen clearly in the idioms “go through water
and fire” and “go on the streets”. Both Vietnamese and English think that “water and fire” is
dangerous and challenging; therefore, they use them to imply something difficult and risky,
and if someone wants to reach success, they often have to overcome them. In order to avoid
insulting and hurting the girls or women who works as a prostitute, both the Vietnamese and
the English choose to use metaphorical expressions.

Table 7. Frequency of GO idioms denoting different meanings
Meaning
Quantity
Rate %
Expressing
feelings
&
emotion

Getting angry

9

11.25

Getting embarrassed
Getting afraid / scared
Getting too proud

1
1

1.25
1.25

1

1.25

1

1.25

7
9
6
4
4
6
3
6
4
8
2
2
6
80

8.75
11.25
7.5
5.00
5.00
7.5
3.75
7.5
5.00
10
2.5
2.5

7.5
100

Getting unhappy/ miserable
Making effort and devotion to be successful
Be in damage, ruin and failure
Being dead
Doing a job and profession
Being in difficulties or hardship
Being lucky and successful
Going at high speed
Behave abnormally
Getting bankrupt
Being in bad or unfavorable condition
Misbehaving
Doing enthusiastically
Idioms having monetary factors
Total

Total

16.25

8.75
11.25
7.5
5.00
5.00
7.5
3.75

7.5
5.00
10
2.5
2.5
7.5
100

Table 7 helps to draw out some remarks as follows. First, most of the “GO” idioms express
feelings and states of emotion (16.25%), in which the idioms expressing anger account for
11.25%, the highest of all kinds of feelings mentioned in this study. Second, the idioms
denoting damage and failure make up 11.25 % and rank the second. Regarding the idioms
expressing anger, for instance, Vietnamese also have a variety of idioms from the lower level
to higher one of emotional level. For example, “đá thúng đụng nia”, “giận cá chém thớt”,
“giận tím mặt”, “nóng mặt nóng gáy”, “tức sơi máu”, “đằng đằng sát khí”, “nổi cơn tam
bành”, “nổi trận lơi đình”, etc.


If in English, the factor of colors is mainly used to tell about the facial expression and imply a
state of emotion like “go red” (getting embarrassed), “go white” (getting scared), in
Vietnamese, colors are also commonly used to describe such facial expression and feelings,
such as “sợ xanh mét”, “nhìn mặt tái xanh tái mét”, “mặt đỏ như gấc”, “thẹn đỏ cả mặt”,
and so on. However, the factor of fruit which is used to describe anger like “go bananas”,
“go nuts” seemingly cannot be found in Vietnamese idioms.
CONCLUSIONS
Conclusion
The study is to conduct an investigation into the syntactic and semantic features of “GO”
idioms with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents. In order to achieve this target
efficiently, a number of theoretical backgrounds are presented to support the study. There are
also implications for learning, teaching and translating “GO” idioms. By answering all three

questions, the author hopes that the findings will be a practical and useful material for the
learners of English and Vietnamese as a foreign language understand and use these idioms
properly and effectively in reality.
The study has revealed the following results:
Semantically, the meanings of all the collected “GO” idioms in English with reference to their
Vietnamese equivalents could be expressed in the form of a noun phrase, an adjective phrase,
an adverb phrase. However, such “GO” idioms, when translating into Vietnamese to get their
equivalents, do not frequently need the appearance of the word “GO” (“ĐI”). Based on the
functional grammar viewpoint, the researcher has investigated each semantic field based on
superficial grammatical structures. In the light of this approach, “GO” idioms are analyzed in
forms of phrasal structures in relation to their semantic features. The phrasal structures could
be categorized into noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases.
The differences in semantic and syntactic features of these “GO” idioms in English could
cause some problems to the Vietnamese learners learning English as a foreign language.
Therefore, on the basis of the result of the study, we would like to put forward some
implications for the possible better language teaching, learning and translating.
Implications
Implication for teaching “GO” idioms
Firstly, the idioms introduced to students should be suitable for the learners. For learners at a
lower level, the idioms should be listed in semantic fields, topics or key words. Of course, the
explanation in terms of structure and meaning is indispensable in order to avoid
misunderstanding the figurative meaning. At advanced level, analyzing semantic mechanisms
of the idioms should be done so that learners can discover the figurative meaning of an idiom
by themselves.
Secondly, teaching the history of how an idiom came into common usage is also helpful to
learners and may provide clues to its present usage. For example, the idiom “Go Dutch”
originated from the bad reputation of the Dutch is that they are very mean. That is why “Go
Dutch” means share the bill equally, and the Vietnamese equivalent should be “tiền ai người
nấy trả”.
Thirdly, to understand the meaning of idioms, learners not only have the basic knowledge of a

language but also master the cultural characteristics of idioms. Therefore, in order to teach
idioms effectively, it is necessary to teach their cultural characteristics as well. For example,
the difference in culture affects the translation of the idiom “go like a hot cake”. In
Vietnamese, we cannot say “bán chạy/ bán đắt như chiếc bánh nóng”. Instead, we say “bán
chạy (đắt) như


tôm tươi”. Furthermore, students should have more opportunities to hear, read and use the
expressions through types of exercises.
Implication for translating “GO” idioms
Some translation tactics relating to literal translation and figurative translation could be given
to help Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign language deal with “GO” idioms.
Translators should make great endeavor to retain the figurative image, rhetorical devices and
cultural characteristics of the original idioms. In addition, because “GO” idioms are used
widely on news, the translators need to capture the general context and content of an article so
that they can find out the most suitable expressions in Vietnamese that are equivalent to. For
example, in an article online, there appears this sentence. Rick Santorum: “The winds are
behind' Trump, if he doesn't go off the rails.” (Trump sẽ có khả năng thành cơng nếu như ơng
ta khơng cư xử lệch lạc và khó chấp nhận). If readers do not follow the news and information
related to Mr. Donald Trump, one of America's most famous billionaires but now he's trying
to become the next president of the USA and a lot of stories around him, it may hard for them
to understand this sentence.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am thankful to Phenikaa University and Thai Nguyen University of Economics and
Business Administration for providing grants to this research.
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